A Woman Is No Man

Rum introduces Isra, a 17-year-old Palestinian girl living with her family in Birzeit, Palestine, in 1990. Their house is perched on a hilltop overlooking Christian and Muslim cemeteries. From her window, she can see much of her village below. She is curious about what lies beyond, but she is afraid to venture out because her culture tells her “a woman belongs at home” (6). Her father, Yacob, wants to marry her off because he sees her as a financial burden. The family is poor, although Yacob tries to hide their poverty by drinking from fancy teacups and imagining that his hilltop view affords him social status. As the novel opens, Yacob is entertaining a potential marriage proposal for Isra by a Palestinian-American family from New York. Isra wonders what living in America would be like for a religiously conservative girl like herself. While she fears for her future, she dares not protest, having learned that “obedience was the single path to love” (9). She is defiant only in her love of books (A Thousand and One Nights is her favorite), but she must read in secret to avoid her father’s beatings.

The American proposes, and, while she fears the culture shock of moving to a strange country with a man she doesn’t know, she also dreams of liberation, of breaking free of restrictive conventions, of having her own library, and of being in love. She reflects on the mistreatment of women in Palestine and wonders if her life will be different in America. A week later, she and Adam Ra’ad sign the marriage contract (the official ceremony comes later). Sitting with Adam for the first time, Isra is afraid to speak. She fears he will find her “nothing special,” something her mother has told her all her life. Without warning, Adam kisses her, and she slaps him. Her mother approves of her response. “Reputation is everything” (15), she tells her daughter.

Adam and Isra apply for her immigrant visa, and they must navigate many Israeli checkpoints on the way. While waiting in line, Isra considers apologizing to Adam for slapping him, although she feels his behavior was clearly inappropriate. After the application process, they have lunch. Isra learns that Adam moved to New York when he was 16 and that he wanted to be an imam but gave up on it to help his father run the family deli. Isra is surprised. She sees his sacrifice as a lack of freedom, but he assures her he is indeed free. 

Set in Brooklyn, New York, in the winter of 2008, Chapter 1 introduces Deya, the 18-year-old daughter of Adam and Isra. Deya lives with her three sisters, Nora, Layla, and Amal, and their grandparents, Fareeda and Khaled (Adam and Isra were killed in a car accident when Deya was seven). Deya’s grandmother, Fareeda, entertains a marriage proposal for her, claiming that marriage is her fate, like it or not. The suitor is Nasser, 24, who is studying to be a doctor. Deya finds the tradition of arranged marriages to be archaic, but she humors Fareeda by serving tea to Nasser’s family and keeping her eyes lowered. She finds that Nasser would rather go into business, to have a secure financial future, than study medicine, but he also feels constrained by his parents’ wishes. He asks Deya what she would like to do with her life, a question she has never been asked before. She imagines herself studying in Europe, but Fareeda has forbidden her from going to college (at least until after she’s married). She doesn’t confide her dream to Nasser, confessing instead that nothing would make her happy. She is resigned to her fate of marriage and family, and since Nasser seems to be the most progressive, least overbearing of her suitors so far, Deya agrees to meet with him again.

Later, over dinner, Deya discusses Nasser with her sisters. Without their parents, the sisters only have each other, and Deya resolves to always live near them. They reminisce about their parents; only Deya and Nora are old enough to remember them, but Nora’s memories are fonder, unclouded by reality. Deya, however, remembers an unhappy marriage marked by emotional distance, anger, and seclusion. 

A day after her wedding, Isra arrives in New York with Adam and his parents. The sight of Manhattan is awe-inspiring, but she finds Brooklyn disappointing by comparison. The row houses are smaller than her house in Palestine, and there are few open spaces and no yards. She feels closed in. She asks Adam if he misses Palestine and if he’d like to return one day. He says he would “if things get better” (50). Adam’s entire family lives here: his parents, Fareeda and Khaled, on the main floor, his sister and two brothers upstairs, and she and Adam will occupy the basement apartment. Isra’s hope for a well-lighted dwelling is dashed when she sees the dark basement illuminated only by fluorescent lighting. In this moment, she regrets not defying her parents and resisting the arranged marriage.

While Adam is running errands, Isra observes the new family dynamic. She is surprised that Fareeda and her daughter Sarah speak openly and without deference to Khaled. Perhaps things are indeed different in America, she thinks. Later, as Isra prepares to tour the neighborhood with Adam, he informs her that her hijab is unnecessary; it will only make her stand out. In America, he informs her, it’s important to fit in. However, as they walk the streets of Bay Ridge, she sees many women wearing the hijab and wonders why she shouldn’t be allowed to as well. That night, Adam forces himself sexually on his new wife, who feels terror and shame, but she resigns herself to it. All women must feel this way, she thinks.

Deya, who attends an all-girl Islamic school, discusses the finer points of love with her classmates, some of whom are engaged to be married right out of high school. Deya expresses reservations about marrying a stranger, but her friend Naeema replies, “That’s how everyone gets married” (62). Deya’s ideas of love are based on books, television, and her personal experience: an unhappy mother, a nearly absent father, and an arranged marriage. She cannot reconcile her own fantasy of love with her daily reality of feeling unloved.

Deya decides she doesn’t want to continue seeing Nasser. This decision sparks an angry debate about Deya’s cultural obligations versus her own desires. She raises the issue of college again, and Fareeda responds, “This is all because of those books […] putting foolish ideas in your head” (65). Her grandfather, Khaled, disagrees. He approves of Deya’s reading and her desire for education; he thinks Fareeda shelters Deya and her sisters too much.

Later that day, Fareeda shows Deya a letter that Isra wrote to her own mother 11 years prior in which she admits feeling depressed and suicidal. Fareeda claims Isra was troubled, “possessed by a jinn” (67). Although she doesn’t believe in this superstition, Deya has a traumatic memory of her mother repeatedly throwing herself from the basement stairs one afternoon. The image haunts her, and she wonders if her mother died not in a car accident but by her own hand. She confronts Fareeda with this suspicion, but her grandmother refuses to confirm or deny Deya’s suggestion, only urging her to forget the past and move on.

Isra wakes up the following day to find Adam gone. He works long hours, and Isra wonders if he’s upset with her for not taking pleasure in his sexual advances. Looking out the single basement window, she feels stifled by the closeness of the row houses and misses the open, airy spaces of Palestine. Still tired from her journey to America, she sleeps until sunset. Adam returns around midnight to find Isra still awake; he asks her to make him something to eat, commenting that, according to her father, she’s a good cook. As they lay in bed, Isra considers giving her body to him freely (and pretending to enjoy it) in exchange for his love, a bargain she is willing to make.

Over the next few weeks, Isra finds her daily routine dull at best. She rarely sees Adam, and when he is at home, he watches TV and drinks tea. She spends her days helping Fareeda with chores and gazing out her window at the gray skies and brick walls. She is desperate to please her new family, hoping her deference and cooperation will result in some measure of love. Over tea, Fareeda tells Isra about the life of women: endless chores, valued only as housekeepers and child-bearers. Despite Fareeda’s words, Isra is determined to find love in her new life.